National Antivisection Society
Horrific reality of Blair’s vision for science
15th July 2003
Animal Defenders International (ADI) and the National Anti-Vivisection Society UK (NAVS) have today launched a new report on shocking cruelty and animal suffering in laboratories in India.
Details include:
- live, conscious sheep being tied up and holes drilled into their brains; experiments that will never be completed, nor published;
- horses covered in severe dermatitis, and others with maggot-infested hooves;
- rodents blinded after blood samples taken from their eyes.
In May 2002, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair complained that UK science was overrun by protest groups concerned about GM and animal experiments, and compared the UK unfavourably with the biotechnology industry in India. The laboratories Mr Blair would wish us to emulate in the UK, are featured in the ADI report this is unfettered, unaccountable science.
"The state of India’s animal research industry brings shame on India’s scientific community it is also an indictment of the international scientific community, which turns a blind eye to cruelty, substandard animal welfare and substandard science", said ADI Chief Executive, Jan Creamer.
ADI and NAVS were presented with a substantial dossier of animal suffering by Maneka Gandhi, former chair of India’s Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA).
ADI searched the international science journals for papers from India, and was disturbed to find governments and funding bodies prepared to finance such work.
CPCSEA’s inspections of 467 laboratories in India paint a horrifying picture: substandard and unhygienic conditions, sick and dying animals and appalling animal suffering, as well as poor science.
ADI has concluded that literally years of scientific research in India has been invalidated by poor scientific procedure, poor laboratory practice and lack of appropriate animal care.
ADI has called for action from the international scientific community, and the Indian government:-
- immediate ban on cruel rabies vaccine production (for a vaccine already condemned by the World Health Organisation); ban on blood sampling from the eye, and other practices. Indian legislation brought into line with the most advanced legislation elsewhere;
- licensing and enforcement measures for welfare and standards of good laboratory practice;
- public information and accountability in the decision-making process; critical review of proposals to use animals; incentives to move to non-animal research;
- end funding of projects in Indian laboratories until effective action has been taken to enforce animal protection and good laboratory practice;
- international science journals to refuse publication of any work from Indian laboratories without independent verification of good animal welfare practice and scientific protocols.
ends
Notes for Editors:
Science itself has established that poor animal welfare affects the results of animal experiments, and this is reflected in legislation in UK and European legislation.
International funding bodies cited in the report include the Rockefeller Foundation, USA, the Danish Development Agency, the Medical Research Council, Canada.
Collaborators in work cited in the report include: California Regional Primate Research Center, University of California; Contraceptive Research & Development Program, Eastern Virginia Medical School; Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Canada, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural College, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Science journals which published the work: Journal of Andrology; Mutation Research; Contraception; Journal of Hepatology; Journal of Molecular Endocrinology.
Laboratories covered in the report include:
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi
- Bengal Chemicals, Kolkata
- Bombay Veterinary College, Parel, Mumbai
- Delhi University, College of Pharmacy
- Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corp. Ltd., Pune
- Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
- Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar
- Jai Research Foundation, Ahmedabad
- Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
- Kakatiya University, Warangal
- King Institute of Preventive Medicine, Chennai
- Marathawada University, College of Veterinary Sciences
- Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi
- National Institute of Virology, Pune
- Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi
- Vaccine Institute, Vadodara
- Vins Bioproducts Ltd., Hyderabad
